a blog about building a plane…

Monthly Archives: July 2016

On July 23rd, 2016, we moved the fuselage to the airport! Old friends Frank Carr and Phil Miller from Shreveport, LA and local RV-8 builder and friend Jeff Bearden came to help. The morning dawned rainy and stormy, so we had to sit around and wait until it was merely light rain. Well, the plane was made to handle rain, so we loaded it all up and hit the road. About 30 minutes later we arrived a little wet, but no issues.

So, I stopped by Tractor Supply the other day and bought this nifty 1/2 gallon pump sprayer for less than $10.00.

I filled it with a quart of Royco 782 synthetic fire-resistant brake fluid, and then discovered that I already had about 8 feet of clear tubing that fit perfectly into the pump trigger assembly. It so happened that the inside diameter of the tubing also fit perfectly onto the brake bleeder screw.

As we say in Arkansas, “sometimes a blind hog finds an acorn”!

I then dug up a bronze tube fitting that fit perfectly into the top of my ACS brake reservoir and slipped a short length of the clear tubing over it.

I loosened the brake bleed screw 1/2 turn, slid the end of the clear tubing over the bleeder screw nipple and after pressurizing the pump tank and pumping the air out of the tube, I began to slowly feed the brake fluid into the system. Thirty seconds later, I saw brake fluid coming up out of the fitting and tube I had installed on the top of the reservoir. I shut off the pressure, tightened the bleeder screw and after wiping up a few drops of brake fluid off of the shop floor, I crawled into the cockpit, and replaced the bronze fitting with the original plugs. Wiped up a couple drops in the cockpit, and tested the pedals. Just like they say, about a 1/4″ of travel then a “hard pedal”. Did the other side and boom, DONE!

I’m beginning work on the windscreen fairing. The first thing I had to do was build up the sides of the boot cowl so they would match with the canopy skirt. Apparently, somewhere along the line, something got off and there is a mismatch. Anyway, I mixed up some dry micro with black dye, added a little Cab-o-sil to make it thixotropic and applied it to the abraded sides of the boot cowl. Sanded it down and now the sides are ready for the lay up.

After masking everything off, I used 2″ and 3″ fiberglass tape to create the fairings along the windscreen border with the boot cowl and the windscreen-canopy fairing. I did add two layers of carbon fiber to strengthen the windscreen-canopy fairing.

I’ll let this cure for a few days since I have to travel to Chicago tomorrow and when I get back, it’s time to see if I can open the canopy and begin the interminable sand-fill-sand-fill cycle to make this look decent. Right now, it just looks crude, but strong.

Many religious arguments exist in the RV builder community. One of the many in the RV-8 religious sub-group concerns using the front baggage “well” for battery and electrical purposes. Some say it’s heresy to use that space and some, like me, think it’s a great idea.

In addition to the PC680 battery, I mounted the B&C regulator for the backup alternator and the fuse block for the backup “essential bus”. The “forest of tabs” grounding block is located here. All in all, I think it’s a great place for all this “stuff” and it frees up the firewall for other things.

The battery mount is attached to the sub-floor using eight AN3 bolts and #10 Riv Nuts.